Embers
by LadyPhantomhive1
Summary: AU. After a devastating war, little is left but ashes, and the ones who are left to salvage a life from them.
1. Chapter 1

_Ten Years Ago _

_The world is burning._

_Finn huddles in the bunker while screams and sobs and the bitter tang of fear waft around him. He wants to cry for his mother, but his throat is already raw from screaming. He knows everything will be okay if he can just find her, but she had kissed him and told him she loved him and gone back for his brothers, and then the big metal door had slammed shut. He closes his eyes and clutches Jake, the puppy they just got a few days ago, and pretends that he is somewhere, anywhere, but here._

_Bonny paces from one end of the bunker to the other, humming to herself to drown out the sounds of everything she knew crashing to the ground around her. She tries to leave it all behind, the wailing children, the mothers whispering comforting lies, the fathers clutching weapons and supplies and pretending they can save their families - and all of them with such empty, empty eyes. She staggers into a wall as an explosion rocks the ground, and slumps to the floor, praying that this cold concrete box will not be her crypt. _

_Marceline pounds at the thick metal door until her hands bleed, trying desperately to bypass this barrier between her and her mother. Her mother, with her slender limbs and soft eyes. Marceline had fought and screamed and clung to her with everything she had, but she had thrown her in here and slammed the door, and then there had been a massive explosion, and Marceline keeps struggling, because she would rather follow her mother into death then be left alone in this ruined world._


	2. Chapter 2

When the earth stills and the fires burn themselves out, the people begin to creep out of their burrows, blinking like newborns in the weak sunlight that filters through the ashen sky. And the exodus begins.

That first month, half of the remaining humans are dead, of injuries, of hunger, of disease, of the despair that gnaws at their souls until nothing is left. There are meager efforts at rebuilding, shelters constructed from rubble and held together by desperation, but many just huddle in the burned-out ground remains of their houses, preferring to pretend that they can reclaim some piece of their former world. By the end of the third month, these are dead too, and there are no longer enough living to dispose of them. When the stench finally drives away all pretense of normalcy, the ruins of the city are at last abandoned, and many abandon with it pieces of their souls, trapped under rubble and in photographs and in tiny white bones.

Finn makes the journey strapped to the back of a red-haired woman whose name no one knows. He is feverish and dreaming most of the time, and they travel silently, trailing behind the bulk of the group. Jake hovers protectively around them, sensing all the dangers that wait for them in the debris of civilization should they lag too far behind.

The group doesn't stop so much as collapse in the first clear area they find, a farm just beyond the state line. Bonny remembers coming here with one of her foster families, an eternity ago, and picking fruit and milking a cow, and although she thought she was too tired to grieve anymore, she cries that night for the loss of cows and apples and soft autumn sunlight.

Marceline has dropped to the ground a few miles back, too weak to move anymore and with no more strength to try. She feels hands shaking her, and opens her eyes a little, bringing into focus the disheveled man standing over her. He lifts her to her feet, and he's saying something, but the words just pile up, unheard, around her ears. She only notices his cold hands and warm eyes and somehow, these things tell her to trust him. He pushes something into her hands, and spoons it into her mouth when she doesn't respond, and it is the most delicious thing she's ever tasted, although she's not sure what it is. Afterwards he lets her borrow his sleeping bag, and that night she feels safe for the first time since that door slammed shut and shattered her heart.


	3. Chapter 3

Winter comes early that year, and as the grey skies fill with snow and hail, disease creeps into every shack, lean-to, and cave, hanging thick in the air like fog, growing with every feverish breath. The group is cut in half, with the sick and a few caretakers remaining in the quasi-village. The others seek shelter elsewhere, in the surrounding forest or in the dilapidated farmhouse, still noxious and heavy with the smell of corpses. With every healthy body gone, the feeble attempts at self-sufficiency - tiny kitchen gardens and empty rabbit traps - are quickly forgotten and rapidly become unusable.

At first, Finn is happy. He likes the snow, although is the wrong color and makes him sick when he eats it. Sometimes, he still asks for his mother, asks when she is coming back, because she said she would and he knows she would not lie to him. The red-haired lady gets a very distant look in her eyes when that happens. She still has not spoken, and he wonders if something in her is damaged, but she is nice so he doesn't really care. She and he and Jake live in a small sheet-metal house that is always cold, no matter how much he burrows into the blankets, but he doesn't mind that either. Slowly, though, their neighbors start to vanish, and the red-haired lady, who must have been a doctor, is always busy, working till she can barely stand. The house is even colder without her there, and Finn starts to worry that she will leave him too.

Bonny can no longer remember a time when she slept through the night. Every time her eyes close, her mind is filled with smoke and screams and gunfire. So she passes her nights helping the doctor-lady, who never speaks but somehow says so much. She learns how to bandage and boil water and make a cure for coughing, and even sees a baby delivered, although it dies a few weeks later. She starts to settle into this new life, quietly and without noticing, beginning to forget a world where skies were blue and there was always food and people didn't have the stench of death sunken into their very bones. Then the day comes when she realizes that she cannot remember what a rose smelled like, and it all hits her once more, stealing her breath away.

Marceline drifts through the ruins of the city with Simon, scavenging for supplies and avoiding everyone. It is not a terrible life, although Simon always talks about leaving , about escaping this bone-filled pit. She knows, of course, that they will never be able to escape, that the dust and the flames and the smell are woven into their skin, their blood. Mostly she doesn't let herself grieve or regret. Her mother is dead; she knows that, and grieving will not bring her back. Sometimes, though, she still cries. Simon is the only thing she cares about when that happens, the only one who can do anything to help. Once, they came to the grocery store that she used to go to with her mother, and she had been unable to do anything but stand in the middle of the street and sob. He had wiped her tears and gotten her a stuffed monkey from a burned-out toy store, and just like that, the darkness in her mind shrank back. She wishes she could do the same for him. She worries for him when he has the visions. He fights with things she can't see, calls out to people she doesn't know, loses track of his own memories - and she can hardly stand to lose him like that, because he is the only thing keeping her anchored.


	4. Chapter 4

While the ground freezes and everything sleeps, the village limps on. Those who moved into the forest have not been seen recently - lost, either to the frost or to the world, and people are scared. The food is running out, there are rumors of bandits, and still the weak and the young are coughing themselves to death in the nearly-emptied cluster of shanties. Many leave. The others live in a state of paralysis, huddled in the crowded, foul smelling farmhouse, or in the snow covered shacks, dreaming of the sun. It is in this state that Simon and Marceline find the group.

Finn and Bonny peer out from behind the adults, assessing the strangers. Only a small gaggle of people have gathered; the others are too busy with the ill. The red-haired lady, the closest thing they have to a leader, is nowhere to be seen, and no one else quite knows what to make of this. They have not see outsiders since they left the city, and despite the whispers about bandits, they half-believed they were the only ones left. Everyone is wary; they are so feeble right now, and could hardly defend themselves if these newcomers betrayed them. The two children don't think about any of this, though, they only see the goods the strangers carry on their backs. Food, tools, clothing...it seems too good to be true, this bounty. The little girl catches their eye as the man speaks to the adults, almost daring them to stare at her. There is a brief standoff, each wanting to make the first move and, simultaneously, too uneasy to do so. The impasse is broken when Marceline pulls a pack of gum out of her pocket. The other two have not seen candy, or anything sweet for that matter, since they left the city, and that is the only thing it takes to break the ice. They slip over the icy ground, holding hands so as not to fall. Marceline looks a little startled as they slide to a stop in front of her, the boy clutching a small, scrawny puppy.

"H-Hello."


	5. Chapter 5

Simon watches Marceline as she follows the other two into one of the small huts scattered around the clearing. It brings a small smile to his face; it has been too long since he saw children at play, has been too long since he saw any other children at all. This world is not kind to the small and innocent. Even these three, these lucky three, are skeleton-thin and have weathered, weary eyes - they are small, but loss and hunger and cold have stolen their innocence.

He turns his attention back to the matter at hand. He needs to be focused right now; the refugees are frightened and desperate, and if he doesn't tread carefully, if they even _think _he's threatening them, they might do something previously unthinkable.

It seems to be going well - they are in bad need of food, and he can provide it. That automatically raises him in their eyes. The negotiations are nearly complete; if he succeeds, he'll have a place to raise Marceline and a network of people who can care for her if...if he can't.

_How did _I _end up a parent?_

And then it's finished; he shakes hands with the man in front of him and moves to the old farmhouse to unload the supplies. The man says something about sending someone over to show him around. _That would be greatly appreciated, _he thinks wryly. The village looks like a handful of toys left scattered by a careless toddler; the tiny shacks are mismatched; leaning; little clusters smattered randomly around from the farmhouse to the dark edge of the woods. It is grey and tattered and frozen, covered like a shroud by uncertainty and fear - and it is still the best place he is likely to find for them. At least it's well-hidden.


	6. Chapter 6

Bonny watches this new girl. It has been very long since she's met someone her own age, and she is not sure what to do. What are they supposed to talk about? _Nice to meet you, we thought that everyone else was dead, just ignore all the sick people lying around. _Thankfully, Finn has no such qualms, and he keeps the girl's attention with his chatter. She smiles internally, despite herself. She's grown fond of the little boy these past few weeks, especially after she cracked and moved in with the red-haired woman. Bonny reminds herself to use her name; she's not just "Lady" or "Miss" anymore. Once, Bonny asked her what her name was, expecting only the usual silence in reply; instead, she looked over and saw one word written in ash on the floor. _Betty._ This was all she had told anyone about herself, and probably all she ever would tell. Bonny doesn't mind. No one wants to remember who they were before - so they store their pasts away in locked rooms, sealing the ghosts inside with them.

She comes back to the present. The girl, who still has not said a word to them besides a tentative hello, is playing tug-of-war with Jake and Finn. And she's smiling, and so is Finn, and _how long has it been since I saw someone smile? How long has it been since I saw someone having fun? _Not even Finn, who is determined to believe that everything will be okay, can bring himself to really enjoy anything in this life they lead now.

Red-faced and breathless, they flop to the floor.

"Hey...um...if you guys want something from my pack, I wouldn't mind. I don't have anything really good, but..."

They don't need much prompting. They are a little in awe, finding it hard to believe that this is real, and unsure what they should take. Finn reaches for a piece of candy, then runs over to his little corner of the room to eat it. Bonny takes a little more time to decide. Hungry as she is, she knows that the sweets would only last a moment; she wants something that will be with her as long as possible. Her breath catches when she spots a pink dress, cleaner than anything she has seen for weeks. Pink has always been her favorite color, but over time all her things have turned colorless with dirt and washing. This dress is soft and bubblegum-colored, with puffs at the sleeves and little ruffles at the bottom. It's exactly the sort of thing she always begged for at the store, but she'd never owned one. Her foster families tended to be the sort who just provided the basics, nothing so frivolous as a fancy dress.

She pulls it out of the pack and hugs it to her chest reverently. Turning, she gives the girl her warmest smile.

"This is beautiful. Thank you."


	7. Chapter 7

The world turns and turns. As winter retreats, the village turns from gray to brown. With the warming temperatures, fewer people are brought to the shack in the middle of the night, coughing and half-dead. But the damage is done. Half of the group lies in the small graveyard on the edge of the clearing, and those who are left know that, if they don't find a way to produce food, more will be joining them.

Finn watches silently as two men dig another hole. Most of the sick people in his house are gone now. He's a little glad, since they were noisy and it was hard to sleep, but he's mostly sad. Only a few were able to go back to their families; the rest have gone to the same place that Bonny says his parents and brothers went. He's accepted now that his mother is not coming back for him. At first he cried, because she said she wouldn't abandon him and he needs her more than ever, but he learned to numb himself and just pretend that there was nothing before the village. You can't miss what you never had, right? At night, sometimes, he still tries to relive his memories, tries to remember what his family was like, but their faces are fading. He doesn't know how to feel about that.

He turns away from the two men as they throw a small bundle into the hole. He escapes into the house, away from the cold...but for whatever reason, he's still shivering.


	8. Chapter 8

**(A/N): I am so very, very, VERY sorry for abandoning these stories for so long. Between school and family, things have just been...ugh. I know that's no excuse. But I'm back now, and I'll be updating once or twice a week from now to when school starts again. I'll probably be updating much more this week, to make up for my laziness. Thank you to all my readers, and I hope you enjoy these new chapters!**

Spring arrives, and with it comes the rain - and the mud. And, worse, the rot. The constant pouring, the softened ground, and the effect of the moisture on largely-untreated wood combine to destroy several of the houses. What food they have managed to preserve quickly spoils in the damp air.

But, still, something is different in the village. There is a collective feeling of accomplishment, of having survived the worst. With the ground erupting with green, and the sky finally showing occasional glimpses of blue, it's impossible not to feel a bit hopeful.

With the number of patients declining, and most of the day to themselves, Finn and Bonny set themselves to exploring. Since the village is no longer snowbound, their boundaries have expanded, and recently they've realized that they hardly know anything about the place where they've lived for the past few months. First they venture beyond the village clearing, then beyond the farmhouse, then into the woods. When Marceline is in town, she joins them. Together they create a mental map of the area, familiarizing themselves with each hidden streambed and gravel-covered ravine. However, they are careful to keep their whereabouts hidden from Simon and Betty. They know that there are still bandits, that it still isn't really safe to be out here, and that they would be immediately confined to the village if anyone found out. And they don't want to give this up. It's the only entertainment they have, and it's nice to have something private after months living in crowded tents and huts.

And then they discover the Caves. Marceline is in town that day, and the three of them are struggling through some brush when she suddenly disappears from view. A moment later, they hear their names echoing from somewhere below them. They scrabble down the slope after her.

"Marceline! Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine. But check out what I found!"

She gestures behind her, toward a wide crevice in the rock. The back disappears into darkness, but it appears to be empty.

"A cave?"

"Yeah! And since we're the only ones who know about it, it will be just our place. I think it goes deeper - we'll have to explore it when we have a light. We can play in here, and we'll have a place to go if...anything happens to the village."

Bonny gives the cave a doubtful look. "I don't think it's really safe. What if it has snakes or bears or something? No one would find us out here."

As she's speaking, Jake breaks from Finn's arms and runs into the cave, snuffling excitedly.

"See? Jake thinks it's safe. And he'd know, 'cause dogs can sense things like that", Marceline adds wisely. "Please, Bonny? It'll be nice to have our own place. And we can just bring a light whenever we're here, so we'll know if something is in there."

"Please?", Finn begs.

Bonny finally gives in. "Hmmm. Alright. If we bring a light."

Marceline nudges her. "Jeez, Bonny, when did you become such a princess?"

"I'm just trying to think practically. It would be terrible if we went through all this just to die of a snakebite in a ditch somewhere," Bonny replies stiffly.

Marceline laughs. "Hey, don't get mad. It's good that you can think like that. Finn's too little and I'm too-"

"Reckless?"

"I was gonna say adventurous. Come on, it's getting dark. We'd better go back."


	9. Chapter 9

Later that week, Simon and Marceline head back out of the village. Marceline tries not to look at the sides of the road too closely. The ditches on the side are strewn with debris, remains of camps and things the refugees couldn't carry. It's a far cry from the beautiful countryside this place must have been before the war. But the real reason she doesn't look is that she knows there are corpses strewn every few hundred yards. People who got sick, people who were too badly injured, people who just didn't make it before winter...no-one knows them or cares enough to bury them, and they're now too bloated to move in any case. And she knows that, if Simon hadn't found her, that would have been her. Just another nameless body on the side of a road, and her mother would have died for nothing.

Simon... She glances up at the man walking beside her. She loves him, she owes him her life, but what does she really know about him? Although most people don't talk about their pasts these days, she wonders if it would be okay to ask. He wouldn't be angry, but she doesn't want to open old wounds. Still...

"Hey, Simon?"

"Yes, darling?"

"I've told you about my mom and stuff...but...I don't know anything about your past. It's okay if you don't want to answer.", she adds hurriedly.

For a moment he gazes straight ahead, his face expressionless. "No, you're right. It's something you should know." He sighs wearily. "To be honest, I don't remember much of my past. I...hit my head very hard, during the bombings. I think I got some brain damage from it. I remember some things, of course - my name, some details of my life - but there are a lot of gaps. It's frustrating, because I have no-one to ask about myself, and I know that if I could find someone who knew me before, I could probably regain my memories."

"What about that lady Finn and Bubblegum live with - Betty? I think they picked her up in the same area of the city we met in. Maybe she knew you, since you lived near her before."

He raises an eyebrow. "'Bubblegum'?"

"Oh," she says shyly, "that's, uh, my nickname for her. 'Cause she always wears that pink dress."

He smiles. "Ah, I see. And you know, I've been thinking the same thing about Betty. But she's always wrapped up in her work, so I've never gotten a chance to talk to her or even see her. Maybe we can meet after things warm up a bit more and there aren't so many sick people. Although, to be honest, I don't know how much she can tell me. They say she's mute, and doesn't communicate much. Still, it's a shot. I'll see what I can arrange."

"Hey, Simon? Do you think that's why you get your... fits? Because you hurt your brain?"

His face goes blank again. "I believe so, darling."

Marceline turns her eyes back to the road. It must be terrible, not remembering your past. Or would it be? There are days when she wants more than anything else not to remember her mother, not to have to pretend she doesn't still hurt, and she wonders if that makes her a terrible person. But there are some memories... her mother laughing, her mother bandaging her skinned knees, her mother holding her as they waited for a father who never came home. Such trivial things, and she wouldn't give them up for the world. They're worth the pain. They are her anchor to a time when the wind didn't smell like ash and decay. Simon doesn't have that anchor. She glances up at him once more, and decides that she will help him find his past. Whatever it takes. Because without her memories, she would be just a warmer version of their roadside companions.


End file.
